We're celebrating Earth Day with themed episodes and specials about caring for the environment, and what we as individuals--and families--can do to help the planet be a cleaner and safer place for everyone: people, animals, and plants.
You can use the stories, themes, ideas, and questions raised by the activities and celebrations of Earth Day on NickJr.com to teach your child about the environment. Becoming a hands-on, personal friend of your immediate environment is the best way to develop in your kids an understanding and appreciation of the environment that will evolve into commitment and purpose later on in life. At a very young age kids are ready and eager to learn about and be friends to the natural world and can understand that there are real actions they and their families can take in their daily lives to help make the planet a better and healthier place for everyone.
Big Green Help Theme #1: Grow It Green What Your Family Can Do:
Make friends with your environment by spending time outside with your child. Help her take photos of the things you each find interesting, and then look at the pictures together and discuss them.
What to Say to Kids:
What kinds of animals do you think could live in these places? What kinds of plants?
It's a good idea to keep these outside places clean so they will be safe and comfortable for plants and animals to live and grow.
What Your Family Can Do:
Visit an aquarium, wildlife preserve, or zoo in your area and make a point of checking out the environmentally themed exhibits with your child.
What to Say to Kids:
The people who take care of wild animals have to know everything about what they need in order to live. What kinds of things do you think different animals need?
Why do people care about making sure places like forests or ponds stay clean?
What Your Family Can Do:
Take a walk around the neighborhood with your child and collect fallen leaves and flowers that you can identify when you get home with the use of field guides or online resources. (Remind your child not to touch plants without your or another adult's permission.)
What to Say to Kids:
Do you think these plants (or flowers or trees) were planted by people or grew wild?
Plants and trees in the neighborhood are pretty, and some can be shady in summer. Which ones do you think are pretty? Do you think any birds, animals, or bugs eat the plants and leaves? Do you think any of them might be used for a home?
What Your Family Can Do:
Does your child have a favorite vegetable or flower? Create a special garden patch either outside or on a windowsill where you can plan a small garden for your child to tend. This is an opportunity to talk about the needs of growing plants and observe the growing process.
What to Say to Kids:
We care for our flower garden just like we try to care for the world around us, everywhere.
You water your plants because they must have water in order to live and grow. What do we drink?
What Your Family Can Do:
As a family you can find Earth Day activities to participate in, such as park clean-ups and tree and flower bulb plantings.
What to Say to Kids:
We're helping keep the park clean so everyone can enjoy it.
We're planting bulbs so in the spring there will be flowers growing here.
Ask kids how they think planting a tree helps the earth. Preschoolers can come up with their own answers, and you can suggest others, such as: trees are homes for birds and other animals; trees give us shade in the summer; people use trees to make things like paper, so it's good to plant new trees to replace the ones we use.
If Your Child Asks: Why are we helping to clean the park? You Can Answer: We're helping keep the park clean so everyone can enjoy it.
If Your Child Asks: Why is it good to plant trees and other things? You Can Answer: Trees are homes for birds and other animals, and trees give us shade. Flowers and plants are pretty and help keep the air clean.
Big Green Help Theme #2: Recycle and Precycle Now
Recycle and encourage the use of items which can be recycled.
What Your Family Can Do:
Write, copy, and draw on both sides of the paper, and talk to your child about every piece of packaging that comes into your home.
What to Say to Kids:
Look, the back of this paper is blank. Let's draw a picture on it!
What Your Family Can Do:
Make recycling a family routine and responsibility. Address the issue with every piece of packaging that you need to dispose of.
What to Say to Kids:
What is this made of? Can we recycle it? Which bin does this go in?
When we recycle glass bottles and metal cans, it gets collected and made into things that are used again.
When we put things in the recycling bins, it gets re-used and doesn't end up in the landfill.
If we fill up too much space in landfills with garbage, we'll run out of space for all the animals, plants, and people.
What Your Family Can Do:
Bring the idea of reuse home by reusing some emptied packaging to make a birdfeeder: a milk carton, a plastic juice jug, or a couple of aluminum pie plates stapled together can be fashioned into a birdfeeder with openings positioned for birds to get at seeds you and your child put inside. Add a wire hanger for suspending it outside not too far from a window.
What to Say to Kids:
By making this birdfeeder we are recycling, and we're also helping the wild birds.
Can you think of any other recycling containers we could have used to make a birdfeeder?
What could we do with some other empty containers to reuse them, such as shoeboxes? Paper bags?
If Your Child Asks: How come I have to color on both sides of the paper? You Can Answer: Paper comes from trees, so if we save paper, we help keep trees from being cut down. Trees are a place where birds and animals live, and they help keep the air clean, so it's important to help save trees.
If Your Child Asks: Why do we put some things in garbage cans and some things in recycling bins? You Can Answer: We separate out glass and bottles and paper so they can be recycled. They get collected and made into things that are used again. When we put things in the garbage, they don't get recycled. They go to a landfill where they take up space, and there's already a lot of garbage taking up space.
Big Green Help Theme #3: Slow the Flow
Help curtail the waste of energy and natural resources.
What Your Family Can Do:
Your kid will love being your number-one helper while you fix any dripping faucets in and around your home. Ask him or her to help you by holding the tools and use the opportunity to talk about water conservation.
What to Say to Kids:
The water that would have been wasted through the dripping leak that we're fixing is not being lost now–-and it will be there for us to use when we need it.
What are some ways to make sure we don't use more water than we need to? Your child may need some prompting to get at the idea of turning off faucets when the water isn't needed, such as when brushing teeth.
What Your Family Can Do:
Model a money-saving, planet-preserving habit for your child by showing, and talking about, your awareness of your own energy use. For example, turn off lights and other energy-using devices when they aren't needed and tell your kids why you are doing this.
What to Say to Kids:
Electricity and other forms of energy cost money and are also easy to waste if we aren't paying attention.
It's hard on the environment to produce all that energy, so we want to do our part to not be wasteful of the energy.
What are some ways we can try to make sure we use only what we need? Your child may need prompting to understand such energy-saving ideas as closing the refrigerator door; turning off the TV and lights when they leave the room; not leaving the door to the outside open.
If Your Child Asks: Why do we turn off the water when brushing our teeth? You Can Answer: If we all pay attention every day to the water we use, and if we don't waste the water we have, there will be more to go around for people, plants, and animals everywhere.
If Your Child Asks: Why do I have to shut the refrigerator door? You Can Answer: Leaving the door open makes the inside of the refrigerator warm, so the motor has to run more to keep food cold. That uses up a lot of electricity. It's hard on the environment to produce all that electricity, so we want to do our part and not be wasteful.
Big Green Help Theme #4: Curb the Car
Stop the dependence on cars and reduce the creation of carbon emissions.
What Your Family Can Do:
Walk and bike when you can; carpool and take public transportation. Cars are hard on the environment because they create air pollution, and your preschooler can understand that fewer cars on the road benefit the earth and the air.
What to Say to Kids:
It's not far. Let's take our bikes!
Cars create pollution, which makes the air dirtier. If we don't take the car so much, we'll help make the air cleaner.
Let's just walk! Walking is fun: you see more, you exercise, and you have the good feeling of saving your environment one car ride you didn't even need. Your air is cleaner--because of you!
If Your Child Asks: What's so bad about taking the car all the time? You Can Answer: Cars are hard on the environment because they create air pollution. So when we leave the car at home, we help make the air cleaner.
Maggie Groening is an educational consultant and writer for children who has worked with NOGGIN and NOGGIN.COM since 2002.
